The standard narrative by most commentators looking at Western vs. non-Western conflicts is either Steyn-ian demographic doom or Sailer-esque insouciance. Sailer wrote on the 20th Anniversary of the “Highway of Death” and the Western air dominance over Libya, asserting that the West can always dominate adversaries as long as it does not occupy them. Mark Steyn notes that differential birth-rates among non-Europeans both inside and outside Western nations promises to transform the West into basically, variants of non-Western nations peopled almost exclusively by non-Western people. That the demographic freight train is unstoppable. The future for America being Mexico, for Europe, Islam. In reality, things are not so simple.

It is not that simple because the West has advantages the non-West lacks. Which is, basically an open-ness to change, including fairly radical social change, driven by technology. At least in part, this has historically been driven by the West being relatively depopulated compared to rival civilizations, and therefore having fewer institutional and mass population centers of resistance to technological change. The compass, gunpowder, paper money, were all invented in China but took hold in the West. Being constantly improved in the West while they languished in China. The fate of the Zheng He’s fleet (burned to the waterline by the Court Eunuchs) contrasts with the voyages of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and others in the West. Where constant improvements in navigation or firearms or money meant increased wealth all around, particularly those who could provide better tools. If nothing else, Western society was small enough so that it did not have massive centers of resistance to social change.

The Western medieval knights, were rapidly abandoned even before the gunpowder advent, with the superiority of the pike square. A bunch of peasants using pikes (and archers in the center) were certainly cheaper than mounted, armored knights, who would require an entire estate to maintain. Later, harquebus and musketeers were even cheaper. And far more deadly. While Europe was radically transforming its military to ever deadlier, ever cheaper versions, Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate, used muskets to beat its rivals, and then outlawed firearms. Fearful of the social changes making peasants more deadly than the samurai would bring. This led to the domination of the Black Fleet under US Commodore Perry. And the wrenching modernization undertaken, as the shock of Western superiority led to hurried efforts to catch up to Western superiority. The Japanese found they had nothing in their arsenal that could even touch the ships of Perry’s fleet in Tokyo Bay.

Two recent maps, from a paper recently published, hat tip Slashdot, shows the top science cities in physics and chemistry. One can see the physics maps here and the Chemistry maps here. The more green a circle is, the more top quality research (as measured by the paper, including originality and new understanding) is done. The more red the circle, the more second-rate, low quality (basically merely copying other research) the city has produced. Larger circles denote more research, and smaller circles less volume of research.

The visualization tool from Google maps is stunning. It shows the dominance, of the East Coast of America, a few institutions on the US West Coast (Stanford, then Berkeley, then UCLA/USC), and then secondarily Western Europe, in the UK, Northern Europe from Northern France, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Norway, in both Chemistry and Physics research. The highest quality of research is done in these locations (with the US leading) and the most volume. [The map above right is of the top Physics locations]

Almost no research of any kind, is done in Latin America or Africa, and that which is done is mostly red (low quality). Russia puts out high volume, but low quality research, and the same is true for China. Japan and Singapore are the only non-European/American nations that puts out high quality and high volume of research in chemistry and physics. [The map above right is of the world chemistry research.]

While there is much to criticize about the US higher educational system, and recent efforts as noted by Steve Sailer to push women into dominance in science at places like MIT put US dominance in science at risk, the US lead is overwhelming. But it is also vulnerable. Just a few locations in the US, MIT, Columbia/NYU, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Sandia Labs, Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA/USC, account for most of the high quality research done in the US. Destroy those cities with nukes, and you kill the entire research advantage of the West. The ability of the West to come up with new, and more deadly technology: better, autonomous UAVs that cannot be jammed, micro UAVs that can observe jihadis without being seen, even small ones with weapons able to kill individual jihadis when opportunities arise. Or the ability to sniff out explosives, with tiny portable devices, or drugs, or other contraband (smuggling of which helps fund jihadi networks). [The map above is of US Physics research output by city]

Just as importantly, advances in chemistry and physics allow Western nations to generate material advantages. The holy grail of electric cars is a self-charging (via powerful solar arrays) system that can store massive amounts of electricity. Both depend on significant advances of chemistry (battery and solar array technology) and physics. Other advances could include networked UAV-based anti-ICBM systems using powerful lasers (which would require advances in chemistry and physics), negating the advantage of nations like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, which possess or will soon, considerable amounts of ICBM nuclear missiles. The play of these failed nation-states has been to use WWII technology (the V2 and nuclear warheads) together to act as a shield against US or other Western nation reprisals, with the threat of nuclear annihilation of those nations (say, Denmark) that don’t fall in line with Islamist domination, and lack significant nuclear forces or protection of their own. Even Denmark could put together an array of satellites orbiting around with lasers powerful enough to blast ICBMs out of the sky during launch phase. The way the Holy League defeated the Ottoman Turks at Lepanto, despite the Papal States, Genoa, Tuscany, the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and Venice being by European standards, second raters (only Spain was a major power).

The decisive hinge therefore of Western and non-Western fate will be, the ability of Western nations to respond to the obvious targeting of major cities, and the ability of ancillary research universities to replace those lost to nuclear or biological or chemical weapon terrorism. It is pretty unlikely that the jihadi networks will target research universities, the lure of major population centers being irresistible. But many major research universities sit in major population centers. MIT is located in Cambridge, near Boston. Stanford sits in the Bay Area, as does Berkeley. Columbia and NYU are in New York City. London is the site of many of the UK’s leading universities. Germany, France, and Switzerland have more dispersed universities, and the US’s key research institutions of Urbana-Champaign (University of Illinois), Sandia National Laboratories, and Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh) are located in second, third, or lower tier cities and towns.

The non-Western world has nothing like the US/European/Japanese university research system, government supported, doing basic research in physics, chemistry, and other areas that supply potential Western advantage. Muslim, Mexican, and African societies have failed, almost entirely, in even establishing research universities. Those in Russia and China do mostly derivative, low quality work though they do have a lot of volume. But as in WWII, technological advances in things like RADAR, computers, bombsights, aircraft design, and crucially, primitive ground proximity fuses (the key American artillery advantage) can make up for disastrous early defeats, poor generalship, and bad tank designs. The American ability to explode artillery shells directly overhead tanks, or advancing infantry, was the great killer of German troops in the West, along with fighter-bombers like the P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang. And on the other side, the German advances in jet engine technology and small arms (the assault rifle prototypes) came too late and in insufficient numbers to beat back the US tide in the West, despite better tanks and artillery.

What in particular, Muslim societies have bet on, against the West and China, is jihad backed by massive amounts of manpower and fanaticism. This has been the traditional way of Muslim warfare, and the uprisings all around the Muslim nations, provoked by food shortages and crisis, are at least in part aimed at restoring Muslim dominance by traditional mass jihad.

This has been tried before. It was quite successful against the Byzantines, the Eastern Roman Empire, taking away Christian North Africa, Spain, the Middle East, Sicily, Southern Italy, and Southern France with ease. Requiring a slow, centuries long effort in Spain, and several hundred years effort in Sicily and Southern Italy, and France, coupled with constant vigilance and escape from Muslim raids. Muslim jihadis were raiding Rome and the Vatican as a matter of course, until the 1400’s.

Against the main force of the West, it has been mostly failure. The siege of Vienna failed twice, as massive amounts of Muslim manpower ran up against European fortifications in the gunpowder age, and better quality of gunners. Against more modern forces, particularly the Second Barbary War against the US, Muslim forces failed. Muslim forces cannot put up modern air combat planes into the sky. They do poorly with tanks, and artillery. Muslim forces do best with irregulars, aiming to dominate by numbers. Against forces with superior technology, and a will to use that technology to slaughter them in great numbers, they fail. Kemal Ataturk’s famous epiphany came at the slaughter of Ottoman forces at Meggido, as Allenby’s combined arms of aircraft, mechanized vehicles, and artillery slaughtered the ill trained, and substantially larger Ottoman forces.

Achieving military dominance, as Victor Davis Hanson points out in “Culture and Carnage,” is not something that is the mere matter of copying Western technology. Because Western nations are willing to upend their own social systems in the pursuit, generally speaking, of material commercial and military advantage, by adopting ever more efficient technology. Technology that makes each man, either in the workforce (machine tools, computerized machine tools, and new materials) or on the battlefield, more efficient. It is the civilizational response of a people facing strategic threats all around them, who are few in number.

The most likely outcome, therefore, is a collision of cultural strategies between Europeans and Muslims (to a lesser extent European descended peoples in the Americas and those of mestizo origin). The Muslim strategy is to conquer by birth rates and mass jihad, in various forms. The European strategy is to dominate by technology that is ever more efficient at both creating wealth and battlefield dominance. The key is the shortage of much of everything, driven by China’s emergence on the world stage, and insatiable demand for raw materials.

The easiest way for Europeans to keep their welfare states, which they like, is to kick out all non-Europeans. Which, one way or another, the will do. Perhaps not all, and some European states might fall under Muslim domination, leaving European neighbors to conquer them in the name of eliminating threats. No one thought much of Germans prior to Bismarck — the Germans were the dis-united, kicked around afterthoughts of Europe. But the ability to leverage advances in chemistry and physics, and combine that with a small but disciplined fighting force, made them formidable by the time of the Franco-Prussian War.

Conflict, therefore, is inevitable. For their part, an impoverished Muslim mass of people in North Africa and the Middle East (including Turkey) see their only way out of poverty through what amounts in one way or another, mass jihad. An exodus in one way or another, into Europe, which is rich and poorly defended. For their part, Europeans (Sarkozy is instructive here, demanding and acting on the demand that Khadaffi go, because he fears Khadaffi sending millions of his people, all Muslims, to France eventually) do not want an influx of Muslims. Their PC/Diversity leaders to the contrary, they want the Muslims and non-Europeans they do have to leave. For nothing else, the preservation of the Welfare state. Which is fundable if they continue to make technological advances and do not have to support a massive Muslim population unsuited to a technology dominated society.

For their part, Muslim jihadis are likely to continue to target iconic buildings and cities in the West: London, Paris, Rome, above all New York City. With perhaps serious damage to research institutions housed in these cities. Attacks on urban centers, regardless if done Bombay Style, or through weapons of mass destruction (airliners loaded with jet fuel, chemicals, biological weapons, and or nukes) are likely to decentralize Western society as attacks on critical centers have in the past. The danger here is that the West would possibly lose some margin of research edge, which is realistically its only hope in competing against manpower-driven rivals.

Contra Richard Florida, wealth comes not from trust-fund reliant urban hipsters, but the sort of folks who founded Hewlett-Packard, or Apple Computer, or MicroSoft, or Intel Corporation. Entrepreneurs and businessmen reliant upon a large pool of technically trained people, and basic research coming from technology and science driven universities. University of Texas at Austin, for example, is no better than LSU, while the University of Chicago, and University of Michigan, outweigh them both. But Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT seemed to have produced the most companies out of the basic research in science and engineering.

This makes Western cities far more productive, than Muslim or Mexican ones, but not in the way most pundits think. Antique stores, tragically hip tend-setters, gays, entertainment/fashion people, do not create wealth. They merely sip at the froth of the wealth created, by pocket protector wearing engineers and scientists. Who in turn create research only in stable institutions, located in middle to upper class income cities, that are livable and not third-world style hell-holes (sorry Tulane University and New Orleans), with a critical mass of colleagues, students, and potential employers.

This makes Western cities, such as San Francisco, Berkeley, Cambridge and Boston, New York City, London, Geneva, Zurich, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, and Chicago vulnerable not just to dirty bombs, nukes, and chemical attacks, but demographic transformation. California could spend all its wealth in a vain attempt to educate immigrants from Chiapas, and their children and grandchildren, to levels of White and Asian achievement, and destroy the ability of the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University to continue cutting edge research into physics and chemistry. Destroying in turn the ability to innovate and create new industries and new jobs. Demographically, the transformation of California from 80% White in 1960 to 40.1% White today, is a serious and probably mortal threat to California’s technological dominance.

You cannot sustain world-class research in physics and chemistry with the population of Mexico. Which California has been transformed from, the state of the Beach Boys and Apple Computer to Chiapas and Cuidad Juarez North, in the space of two generations. Long term, Stanford and Berkeley are finished, because all available money in California will be spent on basic K-12 education, and Affirmative Action at the University level for Chicano Studies and so forth. The same fates await the University of Chicago, and Urbana-Champaign, as Illinois transforms into majority-Mexican. This will move the center of research power to Boston and New York, and the surrounding areas, which are becoming Mexican majority the least rapidly. “Whitetopia”, the area defined by Black Author Richard Benjamin, basically Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, have significantly no real research universities and no real output in physics or chemistry. Second-tier White states, with significant Black populations but miserable economies that don’t attract many Mexican immigrants, such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi have at best, lower level (both shade of green and volume) research universities, but that is better than the basically none at all (confined to Washington and Oregon, what little there is) of Whitopia. Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina all have significant research universities, whose output while second-tier, is respectable. However demographically, they are somewhere between Texas and California (doomed to Mexican majority) and places like Alabama (poor, likely to remain Black and White only).

The advantage European states have, is the ability for some of them to kick out immigrants, particularly places like Germany and Italy and Switzerland (there is less will in the UK or France to do this at present) and so spend most of their education money on things (research on physics, chemistry, and other science/engineering subjects) that create wealth, power, jobs, and advantages. Instead of pouring money down a rathole of attempting to make Muslim, or Mexican, or African immigrants into respectable, bourgeois, science-minded Europeans. To some extent, power is likely to pass, from the US, back to Europe, because their demographics are more favorable, if they act now to kick as many non-natives out. This would mean in practical terms, technological innovation over the next thirty years is likely to come from Europe, not America, and not China (which has volume but little original research).

In the US, technological power and thus wealth creation, is likely to pass to the East Coast again, specifically Boston and New York City. Both of which have remained White enough to attract and maintain world-class researchers at world-class universities. Both of which also seem to have enough of a middle class tax hinterland to support research, instead of what amounts to variations of “University of Phoenix” or Devry Institutes. This certainly sets up a conflict, between a mostly Scots-Irish population ethnically cleansed out of California and the Southwest and parts of the South, and the old Puritan-Progressive population of the Northeast. It is worth noting that while the technological base of the US military depends almost entirely on work done at the basic research level at the few East and West Coast Universities, the manpower of the Military is drawn almost exclusively from West and South White populations.

In the end, we are likely to see over the next thirty years, a nearly total confrontation in all spheres, between a very thin population, almost exclusively White, relying on ever changing, and more powerful technology, and manpower based swarming strategies, designed to overwhelm while not exposing a mass to firepower. Against a backdrop of shortages of almost everything, driven by Chinese demand. While manpower is not a power to be dismissed, against shortages of almost everything, technology often wins. Not every time, but most of the time.

The power given by something as simple as Google Maps shown by the research paper, to visualize data, is likely to be more decisive over time, to a population no matter how small, attuned to use it. Technology is value neutral, except for one aspect. Those who are willing to change their societies and persons, to use more and better technology, succeed more than those wed to a way of life, above all else. Successful use of technology requires its total embrace. Not elevation of God, Allah, or racial characteristics (La Raza, Ubermenschen, etc.) above all else. Instead a constant, restless seeking of advantage.

At any rate, the multicultural, diverse world of today and tomorrow hardly resembles Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” Ride of handholding, singing children. Rather, a fairly Hobbesian war of all against all.

22 Responses to The Power and the Vulnerability of the West

We could just stop exporting food to the 3ed world and watch their usable population drop by 2/3s as they have to return traditional farming methods. The US and EU feeds the vast majority of the world and that's not going to change.

Does everyone here realize Whiskey is Jewish?That's obvious. He flirts with race realism and White nationalism, but he acts as a gatekeeper. Gatekeeper. If you don't know what that means, you should, because you're reading the blog of a prominent example.The "gate" separates what is OK from what is non-kosher. In this case, sure, hate blacks, hate Islam, hate anybody- but don't hate Jews.Be race realist, that's fine. But don't get any ideas about promoting White interests!Get it, sheeple?

JohnycomelatelyI'm pretty sure the Romans were technologically more advanced than the barbarians and it didn't do them any good.What about the Mongols, donkeys and bow and arrows crushed the Arabs while they were at the height of their powers.What about the Hungarian metallurgist that helped the Ottomans destroy the walls of Constantinople. Technology can be bought.

Johnny, you're right, technology can be bought. But as we've seen in numerous examples, having technology or "rules" will not save you, you must make sure the people & culture respect such rules. The same building codes failed the people of Haiti while they served the people of Japan, probably because no one in Haiti thought it wise to implement the standards that were "on the books". The same goes of the Ottomans. Mehmet's viziers were wise enough to hire European talent but it did not save them because they relied on the "talent" more than cultivating it at home. Yes, even after Lepanto the ottomans rebuilt their navy instantaneously but Lepanto's success is not sullied. As Bernard Lewis would tell you, the European culture has/had the motto of "what went wrong, and how can be prevent it" as opposed to the Ottoman motto of "what went wrong, and who is to blame" not throughout their histories, but as a small explanation towards Ottoman retreat in the face of later European victories. Whiskey & others would be able to "kvetch" on Roman failure more than I, but suffice it to say that the barbarians who attacked Rome were well acquainted with its waning power, often former recruits led by former allies of rome as opposed to "out of the blue" mongol raiders. I believe many in the "man-o-sphere" would point to de-facto approval of homosexuality and feminist rule in the later roman periods as a major factor in its fall. Though I wonder why it was not the same for the Eastern empire with its dubious empresses and bedroom scandals.

"Though I wonder why it was not the same for the Eastern empire with its dubious empresses and bedroom scandals."Money. The Eastern Empire was commercially strong and mismanagement could be endured, that was until huge territorial losses deprived Constantinople of income leading to irreparable decline. Maybe I'm leaping but it's analogous to many dead marriages going on until the provider beta loses his job and money problems are the final nail in the coffin.

Gee Grim and let the rest of the 3rd world stop it`s supply of uranium, oil, metal and what have you for just 4 weeks. Then we shall see where your so called "American" culture heads. You are bitching about $4 a gallon, what happens when you can`t even find a gallon of gas anywhere. Are you going to use techonology to forcibly take it? Look where that has landed you in Iraq!! So just get this, if you don`t come to us we sure won`t come to you a**hole. All American "advances" in the century were made possible by European intellectuals or their siblings. Think about that for a moment. And Whiskey, have you been to the Silicon Valley or OC research facilities? You would be surprised at the lack of "White" researchers there. So all of this green is achieved by immigrants, who would given less than half the chance would go back to India or China to continue, and they will in the foreseeable future. Perhaps then we will see the true Anglo-American scientist at work.

"Gee Grim and let the rest of the 3rd world stop it`s supply of uranium, oil, metal and what have you for just 4 weeks." Collective action of this sort would never work. One supplier boycotting the US means huge profits for the remaining suppliers of the commodity. Impossible for your average tin pot thug to resist – forget about Third World solidarity. Experience in Africa shows that resource extraction even in failed states during wartime is possible."You are bitching about $4 a gallon, what happens when you can`t even find a gallon of gas anywhere. Are you going to use techonology to forcibly take it?"Of course. Look at how quickly the Left in this country learned to love war once it was the Mulatto Messiah doing the killing, and not George W. For all their posturing only about 10-15% of Americans would be opposed to a war for oil if gas prices got high enough."Look where that has landed you in Iraq!!" Victory and a lopsided kill ratio in favor of the Coalition. A victory that could have come sooner with brutal tactics (these are sure to be used in an "existential" war for oil)."All American "advances" in the century were made possible by European intellectuals or their siblings."False"And Whiskey, have you been to the Silicon Valley or OC research facilities? You would be surprised at the lack of "White" researchers there."Possibly true in that area, though I doubt it. False for the nation as a whole. Even research departments are still dominated by Whites. Or at least people with "caucasoid" features. Lots of Jews & East Europeans, in particular. "So all of this green is achieved by immigrants"False. Many of the few nonwhites in research programs are 2nd generation "model minorities" born in the US with US citizenship."who would given less than half the chance would go back to India or China to continue, and they will in the foreseeable future."False. Step outside of Coastal, built-up areas in China or India and the buildings are literally full of human feces (no joke – there was an entire article on this in a recent Chinese blog post I read). Not to mention corruption, violence, & lack of property rights. I'm sure that police billy clubs & feces-strewn tenements will attract the average nonwhite yuppie away from his penthouse in Georgetown or Los Angeles. Positive, in fact.

Anon — look at the maps in question. China has (and India even less so ) only volume, low quality research. Basically copying others.Advances in computing technology depend on basic science, physics and chemistry. New materials to store data, new materials to process data at ever higher speeds while solving the heat problem. Which is an energy problem. Faster, more powerful, and less power hungry processors are an advantage. To do that, they require basic research. Which China and India have in only poor quality.Why? Because both societies are not very open to change. Being big has many advantages, but a big society has entrenched so many barriers to social change, that people tend to be "exam driven" rather than achievement driven. Had China possessed a middle class society, they could have never created the Wright Brothers, who rejected prior research as faulty, and conducted their own aerodynamic research based on their own experiements.

quote:"You are bitching about $4 a gallon, what happens when you can`t even find a gallon of gas anywhere. Are you going to use techonology to forcibly take it? Look where that has landed you in Iraq!!"One of the causes of the Iraq war was the foolish attempt at trying to spread democracy there. American society's ignorance of HBD thanks to the mainstream miseducation system made this possible. Once you understand that intelligence is NOT equally distributed across all races, you understand the foolishness of trying to spread democracy to Iraq. This is why I consider Neo-conservatism and Liberalism to be very similiar. BOTH ideologies attempt to social engineer society Ignorant of HBD. The difference of course is the prefer tool to use. One uses military force while the other uses social welfare, but the ultimate goal is still the same Social engineering.

"BOTH ideologies attempt to social engineer society Ignorant of HBD. "I agree. I did not mean to imply that I approve of the Iraq war at all. GWB's Wilsonian impulses are just as destructive for the US as Left wing conniving on the home front. As with Wilson after WWI, conventional Protestant theology likely led Bush & mainstream Republicans astray (humans are culturally interchangeable, and it is "sinful" to acknowledge different racial groups' limitations). He reminds me of nothing so much as the Scandinavian/Midwestern clergy who are pushing for mass Somali immigration to Minnesota, because our Brown Brothers can be "tamed" through more contact with Americans (guess which state is now plagued with East African gang violence)?

"…only about 10-15% of Americans would be opposed to a war for oil if gas prices got high enough."True enough. But the oil out of Iraq does not off set the cost of maintaining the country."Collective action of this sort would never work. One supplier boycotting the US means huge profits for the remaining suppliers of the commodity. Impossible for your average tin pot thug to resist – forget about Third World solidarity. Experience in Africa shows that resource extraction even in failed states during wartime is possible."Again it sounds like most of your experiences are based on Blood Diamond. The US threatened war on Namibia when it declined to sell uranium to them while it was supplying Iran. "Victory and a lopsided kill ratio in favor of the Coalition. A victory that could have come sooner with brutal tactics"The brutal the "coalition" gets the worse the Arabs seem to get. Had the current iraq Gov. not been willing to be a shield for the occupation forces, they might have fared worse than Vietnam.["All American "advances" in the century were made possible by European intellectuals or their siblings."]"False"Please prove me wrong!!! Give me one big advance. Electricity seems to be the only invention, which Tesla (a European!!!) had to help to perfect.Possibly true in that area, though I doubt it. False for the nation as a whole. Even research departments are still dominated by Whites. Or at least people with "caucasoid" features. Lots of Jews & East Europeans, in particular. You just streangthened what I said – East Europeans-. And the domination of Whites has cost America the leadership of innovation now.False. Step outside of Coastal, built-up areas in China or India and the buildings are literally full of human feces (no joke – there was an entire article on this in a recent Chinese blog post I read). Not to mention corruption, violence, & lack of property rights. I'm sure that police billy clubs & feces-strewn tenements will attract the average nonwhite yuppie away from his penthouse in Georgetown or Los Angeles. Positive, in fact. I doubt it. Most people believed Japan would not be able to deal with the recent disaster. My point – you seem to exist in a dream where the world outside the US and Western Europe is all bad. Did you know China just built an 50story skyscraper in just 15 days? I doubt it. Has it ever been done here? No!! So where did they copy it from I wonder… [Once you understand that intelligence is NOT equally distributed across all races, you understand the foolishness of trying to spread democracy to Iraq.]Haha that was a good one, am still grinning you know, whoever you are. Do you know what the numerical digits you use are called? I doubt it so I will tell you, or do you wanna guess? It`s called the Hindu-Arabic Numericals System. Yeah they are dumb indeed, they only created numbers, calendars, irrigation systems, the basis for engineering, alphabet systems and so on. Yeah I could see why you would think they are not as bright as your average western kid who does not even know his multiplication table.

"it sounds like most of your experiences are based on Blood Diamond."Never watched it and don't intend to.Resource extraction in unstable countries is feasible as long as there's adequate homefront support. Most invasions run into trouble if there is either lukewarm support at home (Vietnam) or a population of colonial settlers that needs to be protected, such as French Algerians in the 1950's-1970's or British Kenyans in the 1950's. Even in these cases, where the colonial powers lost, kill ratios usually favored the European armies, and many of those killed by insurgents were themselves nonwhites (Blacks, Vietnamese peasants, Algerian natives) as opposed to White soldiers."Most people believed Japan would not be able to deal with the recent disaster."Not true. Multiple commentators even from the outset have praised Japan's response to the crisis and expect Japan to recover, even if they are somewhat critical of the gov'ts handling of the nuclear emergency. See, for instance, the well-known Daily Telegraph piece a few days ago on the absence of widespread looting. "My point – you seem to exist in a dream where the world outside the US and Western Europe is all bad."A strawman, and not even a very good one. I'd appreciate if if you'd refrain from this, and it would also benefit your debating skills (of course, the choice is ultimately yours)."Please prove me wrong!!! "Nope. If you'd prefer to believe that this is the case I am not going to respond. You are attempting to structure the debate by dictating what constitutes a "big advance". I will post an American inventor, and then you will deny that it is a "big advance". No thanks. Did you know China just built an 50story skyscraper in just 15 days? I doubt it. Has it ever been done here? No!! So where did they copy it from I wonder…"You just REINFORCED my claims (also covered by Whiskey in much greater detail) about Chinese malinvestment. There is an overabundance of massive infrastructure projects that are probably not economically viable, such as many of China's high speed rail lines and entire cities – some of which are hastily-constructed concrete ghost towns. Not unlike similar ego-boosting projects in countries like Dubai (massive skyscrapers that will never be fully occupied). The Japanese already learned that stimulus through massive, makework infrastructure projects does not work if there isn't underlying demand.

„Haha … It`s called the Hindu-Arabic Numericals System.“ That there is something called the Hindu-Arabic Numerical System does not demonstrate that intelligence is equally distributed across all races. That you think this way is in itself proof of bad thinking. You are presenting with all the necessary motions included (grinning in supposed triumph) a variation of what Derbyshire called the „What about Sally?“ fallacy. Derbyshire:„Statistical truth is extraordinarily difficult for untrained minds to grasp. I know what I am talking about, for I was once a teacher of statistics. I use a different thought experiment to illustrate this sad truth. Imagine you are addressing a room full of people. We can let them be quite well-educated people, so long as they are not trained statisticians. A room full of students from some university Humanities department will do nicely. Now say the following thing to the room: “Men are, on average, taller than women.” I can almost guarantee—it is nearly a dead certainty—that someone in the room will stand up and say something like: “What about Sally? She’s taller than any of us. Taller than you, for sure—Ha ha ha ha!” The room will then consider your thesis to have been decisively exploded. Men taller than women? Nonsense! Look at Sally!“By the way, through ruthless darwinian selection not the Hindus in general but the brahmin caste in particular has a relatively high average IQ distribution. But in the Arab world the custom of cousin marriage has seriously damaged their gen-pool. Haha

Nine-of-Diamonds said:==>"Resource extraction in unstable countries is feasible as long as there's adequate homefront support" Ture enough. The Middle East (Iraq), Russia (in the North Caucasus) seems to be good examples of this.West Africa is also an example."…where the colonial powers lost, kill ratios usually favored the European armies…"Usually because the fighting was between different tribes against the dominant/ruling one which supported the Europeans."…the well-known Daily Telegraph piece a few days ago on the absence of widespread looting."(the well-known Daily Telegraph, might I detect a hidden dig there?) But hardly the point I was trying to raise. Absence of looting shows Japanese decency. You miss my point."A straw man, and not even a very good one. I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from this, and it would also benefit your debating skills (of course, the choice is ultimately yours)"Please go to any European country and see how obnoxious Americans seem to get with entitlement and supposed "affluency". I once had a middle aged woman ask for "real Money" in a major Euro Currency EU country.==>I again doubt you would get my point. But if that is how you want to be seen through out thw World it`s up to you."I will post an American inventor, and then you will deny that it is a "big advance"."Go ahead give it a try."There is an overabundance of massive infrastructure projects that are probably not economically viable, such as many of China's high speed rail lines and entire cities – some of which are hastily-constructed concrete ghost towns"Huh? The Chinese are more than 1.6 billion people. What are you talking about man? Ghost towns? Besides with the cheap labour at their disposal it`s probably all paid for."Not unlike similar ego-boosting projects in countries like Dubai (massive skyscrapers that will never be fully occupied)"Yes, that is more like it. Dubai is already in bankrupcy."The Japanese already learned that stimulus through massive, makework infrastructure projects does not work if there isn't underlying demand."It was actually Singapore and Indonesia who suffered more with such massive infastructure expansion.

Thomas Fink:"That there is something called the Hindu-Arabic Numerical System does not demonstrate that intelligence is equally distributed across all races"That you don`t even know this makes me question your claim that you are/were a statistician? Along with the Roman Numericals it is one of the first thing they teach you when you do Math as a major."grinning in supposed triumph"Again I was grinning because someone claimed that people in the ME had less mental capacity. Was pointing how advanced they infact are. Let`s not forget Hammurabi's Code of Laws, the first written laws and as near as democratic a monarch could get in the BC era."Statistical truth is extraordinarily difficult for untrained minds to grasp."Not unless you are trying to show profits for a bank, haha. "A room full of students from some university Humanities department will do nicely. Now say the following thing to the room: “Men are, on average, taller than women.” I can almost guarantee—it is nearly a dead certainty—that someone in the room will stand up and say something like: “What about Sally? She’s taller than any of us. Taller than you, for sure—Ha ha ha ha!” The room will then consider your thesis to have been decisively exploded. Men taller than women? Nonsense! Look at Sally!"Where is the statistic? You could easily say a fallacy would render your argument false. But that is mathematical logic."…through ruthless darwinian selection not the Hindus in general but the brahmin caste in particular has a relatively high average IQ distribution."Brahmin are Hindus. By the same What about Sally not all Brahmin were/are brilliant and not all lower caste Hindus were/are of less IQ. "But in the Arab world the custom of cousin marriage has seriously damaged their gen-pool."How do you know? Might we mention the Sally fallacy in the event we might find a higher IQ Arab?

"I once had a middle aged woman ask for "real Money" in a major Euro Currency EU country.==>I again doubt you would get my point. But if that is how you want to be seen through out thw World it`s up to you."If you want to take examples of some rude American tourists to draw broader conclusions about America (ZOMG stoopid hamburger eating Amerikkkans LOLOL) more fool you. I can't say I'm surprised; this fixation on American inferiority has existed since the 1700's, when European "scientists" stated that American whites were physical/mental degenerates, due to some mysterious property of the New World environment. Out of curiosity, do you think there are any rude German/Austrian/British/Japanese/Chinese tourists? Why or why not? Your fixation on "rude Amerikkkans" makes me honestly curious.I did not miss your point about Japan – you said that people thought Japan would not be able to deal with the disaster. I proved that well-known media outlets hold the exact opposite opinion. You still insist I'm wrong. Go figure.And the comments about China are confusing – a city WILL NOT be populated and thrive if there is insufficient demand for services within a region. Regardless of how densely populated a country is. China, Japan, and a few other nations have a track record of covering the land with concrete to no effect, because the new buildings/airports/highways were simply not needed. Of course, the money needed to build them came from tax dollars or borrowing (with some loss due to bureaucratic inefficiency), so they are an economic burden. I don't deny that they may be beneficial from a political/regional standpoint for certain officials (jobs & patronage), but nationally, an unneeded infrastructure project will always be a net loss.

Considering it was in fact that Christianity of the west (putting God above all else) that in fact led to science your assertion that “Successful use of technology requires its total embrace. Not elevation of God, Allah, or racial characteristics (La Raza, Ubermenschen, etc.) above all else.” is patently false.